Escadote I Corporation v. Ocean Three Condominium Association, Inc. – 3rd DCA

In this case, the Trial Court granted summary judgment in favor of the Defendant property manager regarding Plaintiff’s claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress stemming from alleged water intrusion due to a leaky roof in a condominium owned by Plaintiff. To maintain a cause of action, it must be shown that: (1) the wrongdoer’s conduct was intentional or reckless; (2) the conduct was outrageous; (3) the conduct caused emotional distress; and (4) the emotional distress was severe. The 3rd District Court of Appeal agreed with the Trial Court’s finding that there was no evidence indicating that Plaintiff was particularly susceptible to stress, nor was there any evidence that the Defendant property manager was in a position of power over the Plaintiff to sustain a claim. Therefore, no genuine issues of material fact existed and Defendant’s motion for summary judgment was properly granted.

Cavanaugh v. Stryker Corporation – 4th DCA

In this case, the 4th District Court of Appeal held that the Trial Court’s decision to allow one additional peremptory strike for replacing an excused juror with a duly selected alternate did not constitute an error that required a new trial because there was no “tactical gamesmanship” on the part of the Defendant. The 4th District Court of Appeal reasoned that parties are not entitled to have any particular jurors serve, rather they are entitled only to have qualified jurors. The Court noted that there have been numerous cases in which it was found that any error in removing a juror is harmless where the juror was replaced by a duly selected alternate who had been present during the entire proceedings and where no prejudice was shown to have resulted from the substitution.

State of Florida v. Torres – 4th DCA

In this case, the 4th District Court of Appeal held that even when messages are not obtained directly from the sender’s phone, electronic communications, like other traditional communications, may be authenticated by appearance, context, substance, internal patterns, or other distinctive characteristics taken in conjunction with the circumstances. Prior to trial, the Trial Court granted Defendant’s motion in limine to exclude screenshots because of insufficient evidence connecting the Defendant with the messages. The 4th District Court of Appeal reversed the Trial Court’s order, finding that the Trial Court erred because the authentication of screenshots of messages from an instant messaging app was satisfied by the victim’s ability to identify the Defendant as the sender of the messages based on his extensive history of texting the victim through the messaging application, the nickname he used as his screen name, and the content of the messages which referenced facts known only to the Defendant and the victim.

Tabraue v. Dostors Hospital – 3^rd DCA
In this wrongful death case, the Court held that there was no non-delegable duty existed in the context of a hospital providing non-negligent emergency care to patients via common law, statutes, express contracts or implied contracts. In rejecting the argument that a patient’s admission to an emergency room creates an implied contractual relationship with the hospital, the Court disagreed with contradictory holdings of the 4th District Court of Appeal and certified conflict.

Sentz and Geico v. Tracy – 5^th DCA
In this case, the plaintiff was awarded attorneys fees and costs as a result of the defendants’ denial of requests for admissions. The requests sought an admission that the defendants acted negligently. The 5th District reversed, holding that requests for admissions that go to ultimate issues are improper.

Bellezza v. Menendez – 4^th DCA
In this case, the 4th District Court of Appeal remanded a matter for new trial, finding that the attorney/client privilege prohibited the disclosure of the relationship between a plaintiff’s attorney and the plaintiff’s treating physician. In remanding the matter for new trial, the Court applied the Florida Supreme Court’s decision in Worley v. Central Florida Young Men’s Christian Ass’n, 228, So.3d 19 (Fla. 2017), which held that a lawyer’s payments to a plaintiff’s treating physician was not discoverable, and further recognized that the attorney/client privilege protects whether the plaintiff’s lawyer referred the plaintiff to a particular physician.

Breger v. Robshaw Custom Homes, Inc. – 5^th DCA
The Fifth District reversed a Trial Court Order enforcing a settlement and dismissing the complaint with prejudice.  Plaintiffs owned certain real property as joint tenants with the right of survivorship.  The Defendant entered into a contract with the Appellants to improve the property.  After completion, the Plaintiffs were not satisfied with the quality of the work, filing a lawsuit for breach of contract and negligence.   Plaintiffs each filed individual proposals for settlement, with the Defendants accepting one of them.  The Defendant believed that acceptance of one would end the lawsuit.  The Trial Court agreed, stating that the claims were “undifferentiated” and that settlement as to one Plaintiff was binding as to all.  The Fifth District disagreed, noting that acceptance must be a mirror image of the offer.   The Fifth District noted that the acceptance was not (as it included the other Plaintiffs) and further found that one Plaintiff could not bind the others to a settlement.

Younkin v. Blackwelder – 5^th DCA 2019
In this case, the Fifth District held that a plaintiff was entitled to know the total number of times a defense firm has retained an expert to perform a Compulsory Medical Examination as well as the amounts paid to that physician.  The Court based this decision on Allstate Ins. Co. v. Boecher, where the Florida Supreme Court held that similar information with respect to an insurer’s relationship with an expert was discoverable.  The Fifth District also certified conflict with the Florida Supreme Court’s decision in Worley v. Central Florida YMCA, which held that the attorney-client privilege prohibited a defendant from obtaining discovery from a Plaintiff’s law firm regarding the number of times it referred clients to a particular physician.  As the Younkin Court noted, a plaintiff’s firm can refer all of its clients to the same physician and this information is not discoverable, yet the same protections are not afforded to Defendants.

Davis v. Karr, 5^th DCA

In this case, the Court addressed the issue of whether, under Florida’s Medical Malpractice Act, a presuit affidavit submitted by a plaintiff from a health care provider who does not specialize in the same field as the defendant nevertheless meets the statutory presuit investigatory requirements for filing a medical negligence suit.  In the case reviewed, the defendant was an orthopaedic surgeon.  The presuit expert affidavits provided by the plaintiff were executed by an emergency room physician, a radiologist and a nurse.  Defendant sought dismissal asserting that the three affidavits were insufficient to meet the statutory presuit requirements of Section 766.102(5)(a)1., Florida Statutes (2013), because none of the affidavits was from an expert witness specializing in his field of orthopaedic surgery.  The 5^th DCA affirmed the dismissal, holding that the plain language of the statue required the presuit affidavit to be executed by a physician within the same specialty as the defendant.

Henry v. State, 4^th DCA

In this case, the Court affirmed the Trial Court’s ruling that a photograph of a contact information screen on a cell phone was not inadmissible hearsay.  The Court explained that if the photograph was used to prove the defendant’s telephone number, it would be considered inadmissible hearsay.  However, the contact information screen addressed at trial was similar to an entry in an address book, which Courts have generally held to be non-hearsay when used for the limited purpose of proving association between the maker of the address book and another.

Middleton v. Don Asher & Assoc, 5^th DCA

In this premises liability case, the 5^th DCA reversed the Trial Court’s order granting summary judgment.  Plaintiff owned property where the incident occurred and had resided there for fifteen years. While walking on the defendant’s premises, plaintiff tripped on an uneven sidewalk and was injured. The opinion notes that the plaintiff had previously walked the property on several occasions and frequently passed the area where she fell. She then brought a negligence action against Appellees.  The Trial Court granted the motion for summary judgment, which argued that the condition of the sidewalk was open and obvious.   In response, plaintiff argued that even if the condition was open and obvious, an issue of fact remained as to whether the defendant should have anticipated that condominium residents would use the sidewalk and encounter the cracked and uneven concrete, requiring it to be inspected and repaired.   While the 5^th DCA agreed that an uneven sidewalk was an open and obvious condition as a matter of law, because the issue of the defendant’s duty to maintain and repair existed, summary judgment was not appropriate.